


Living In The Sun

by queerhazeleyes



Series: Tumblr Drabbles [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen, Implied Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov - Freeform, Implied Clint Barton/Phil Coulson - Freeform, M/M, Open to Interpretation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1544807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerhazeleyes/pseuds/queerhazeleyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Avengers drabbles prompted on Tumblr</p><p>Chapter 1: Wanweird - an unhappy fate, Phil's funeral</p><p>Chapter 2: Brontide - the low rumbling of distant thunder, Clint and Natasha fight robots</p><p>Chapter 3: Lalochezia - The use of abusive language to relieve stress or to ease pain, Natasha-centric</p><p>Chapter 4: Tarantism - The urge to overcome melancholy by dancing, Sam/Steve/Bucky</p><p>Each chapter is a stand-alone, and more will likely be added in the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wanweird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wanweird - An unhappy fate
> 
> "It was sunny the day of Phil Coulson’s funeral."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://queerhazeleyes.tumblr.com/post/84278983271/wanweird-the-avengers)

It was sunny the day of Phil Coulson’s funeral. Clint scowled at the sky, feeling betrayed. Today was one of the worst days of his life (and he had a number to choose from), it seemed beyond unfair that anyone should be happy today. On the other hand, the sunglasses he wore hid his red-rimmed eyes from the world. He never could hide anything from Natasha, he thought as she slipped her arm around his waist and leaned into him in a manner that made it seem as though he was holding her up, instead of the other way around.

They stood together in the sunshine as Phil’s coffin was lowered into the ground. When tears slid onto his cheeks, Clint buried his face in Natasha’s hair; she tucked her own face into the crook of his neck, building the illusion that she was the one in need of support. She grabbed blindly for his left hand to brush fingertips across the cool metal of Clint’s wedding band.

He never could hide anything from Natasha, Clint thought again, but then, he never really had to.


	2. Brontide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brontide - The low rumbling of distant thunder
> 
> "I’m just saying, grad students could use a little more oversight if they keep turning out shit like this,"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://queerhazeleyes.tumblr.com/post/84303937401/brontide-clint-natasha)

"I’m just saying, grad students could use a little more oversight if they keep turning out shit like this," Clint griped into the comms. He was taking shot after shot from his perch on the roof of the university library, but sooner or later the rogue robotics experiments would figure out where he was.

"What would you suggest?" Natasha asked. She’d discovered her Bite was most effective if the charge hit a joint, and was brawling with the bots on street level. The damn things weren’t as strong as, say, Stark’s armor, but there was easily a hundred of them and they were strong enough to have broken at least one of Natasha’s ribs so far.

"Child leash?" suggested Clint. "Fuck. Stark and Banner better be enjoying Genovia."

"Geneva," Natasha corrected. "They’re at a science conference in Geneva. Genovia doesn’t exist." In fact, none of the other Avengers were in New York at the moment; Rogers was in the Southwest somewhere chasing a lead on the Winter Soldier and Thor was… well, she was pretty sure he was in Asgard, but you could never really know with Thor.

"What do you mean, Genovia isn’t real?" Clint asked, picking off three more robots. "It’s in Europe, next to France or whatever."

Natasha’s head snapped up at the distant sound of thunder. The sky above them was darkening quickly, clouds swirling grey overhead. “Finally,” she huffed. “I think our air support just arrived.”


	3. Lalochezia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lalochezia - The use of abusive language to relieve stress or to ease pain
> 
> "The safehouse they’d managed to find was run down and dusty; it wasn’t the best place for performing first aid, but it was all they had at the moment."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://queerhazeleyes.tumblr.com/post/85751336031/lalochezia-black-widow-coulson-non-pairing)

The safehouse they’d managed to find was run down and dusty; it wasn’t the best place for performing first aid, but it was all they had at the moment. Coulson had managed to clear off the coffee table—easier to clean after than the couch or a bed—and had laid Natasha down on it to examine the bullet wound to her shoulder.

"I don’t see an exit wound," he told her, examining the shoulder when he’d managed to cut away part of her suit. "I’ll have to get the bullet out; I’m not sure how soon SHIELD can get us out and I’d rather not risk infection."

"Fine," Natasha replied tightly. "Do whatever you need to."

Coulson nodded once and set to work, first cleaning the wound as best he could so he could see what he was doing, then—carefully, and narrating his actions for Natasha—seeking out the bullet buried in muscle.

Natasha was muttering under her breath the whole time, voice occasionally rising in volume as the pain increased. Focused on his task, Coulson ignored it at first. Once the bullet was extracted from the spot beneath her clavicle where it had lodged itself, he tuned in. And smiled. The Black Widow was rattling off a litany of inventive and explicit curses in every language she knew, occasionally changing languages mid-sentence for a word with more punch. Coulson couldn’t understand everything she was saying, but what he could… well, call it educational.


	4. Tarantism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tarantism - The urge to overcome melancholy by dancing, Sam/Steve/Bucky
> 
> Most days, most of the time, Bucky was himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://queerhazeleyes.tumblr.com/post/101563408561/tarantism-sam-steve-bucky-d)
> 
> Also warning for (short) discussion of triggers related to PTSD, nightmares, violence

Most days, most of the time, Bucky was himself. There were still times when the shattered remnants of The Winter Soldier took over, times he was caught off guard or overwhelmed by the press of people and reacted with knee-jerk violence. He refused to share Sam and Steve’s bed after too many nightmares that ended with a knife to someone’s throat in the dark before Bucky broke back through the programming. Therapy had done wonders, and he could go weeks or months without an episode, but he knew they might never go away completely. So instead the three of them were careful. They eschewed action movies (too much gunfire and explosions), ran their errands during off-hours when stores and streets were less crowded, and at night after his lovers were asleep, Bucky would slip out from between Sam and Steve to pad quietly down the hall to his own bedroom.

Steve kept close watch over his returned friend, as close as Bucky ever kept on him when he was constantly getting sick or into scrapes. He learned to predict when Bucky was starting to slip; Bucky before the war had been a creature of constant motion, unable to sit quietly for more than a few minutes. He squirmed, he fidgeted, he twisted up little bits of paper or drummed his fingers on his thigh. The Winter Soldier would do none of those things. He was a weapon, every movement efficient and no energy gone to waste. When he noticed Bucky start to go still, Steve found an excuse to get him moving again. Sometimes it was video games—Mario Kart was a household favorite, even if they could never agree on a course—or baking cookies for Sam to take to work at the VA, or going with him on a jog. If Steve could get Bucky moving again, they could avoid the vacant expression and the drawn blades that usually followed.

By the time summer arrived—and with it, a series of parties thrown by the college students next door—Sam had also caught on to Steve’s methods. So one night when the neighbor’s music filtered through walls and windows left open to catch the evening breeze, when Sam was hunched over a pile of paperwork he’d been procrastinating and Steve was in the corner with his sketchpad commenting on the documentary he and Bucky were both watching to catch them up on things they’d missed, and Bucky’s restless movements slowed to a stop, Sam set down his pen and stood to stretch his muscles.

“God,” he said, tilting his head to catch the music from next door. “I think they played this song at my prom.” He held out a hand to Bucky, who looked up at him with wide-eyed shock.

“What, I don’t know how to dance to this kind of music!” he protested.

Sam beamed at him. “I’ll teach you. Then you and Steve can show me how you cut a rug back in 1940.”

That brought a snort from Steve, where he was still bowed over his sketchbook. “I never could dance worth shit,” he said. “Not that easy to try and lead when your partner was always half a foot taller than you. Bucky, though, there were nights he was out on the floor spinning two dames at once.”

“Oh, really?” Sam asked, raising an eyebrow. He hadn’t lowered the arm he’d offered to Bucky. “Well then, why don’t you show me some of those moves first, then I’ll get to embarrass you both when you try to dance like we did when I was in high school?”

Bucky smiled then and finally took Sam’s hand. “All right, fine,” he said. “Steve, get some Glen Miller or Bing Crosby playing. Show those kids next door what real music sounds like.”


End file.
